“Nope. That would have been straightforward. He let my mom do things with me. Rent me out to her little boyfriends. He pretended he didn’t know.” Her lips twisted in disgust. “She charged them to have sex with me. It was like Monopoly money to her. I was like the little shoe or the iron.” Her shoulders compacted, her body hunched in on itself. She appeared about half her size.

The Monopoly references did not seem to register with the Rev. “She living? Able to pay?”

“Now there’s a question that makes sense,” Olivia said. “No, she’s not. She was the first person I killed.”

“What did you do with her?” The Rev asked this question with an almost professional interest.

“I took her boat out,” she said. “I tossed her in the ocean. I hope the fishes ate her.”

“Something surely did,” the Rev said. He approved of that.

She said, greatly daring, “Is that what you do with the bodies?”

“No,” the Rev said, after a laden pause. “Not unless it’s at the full moon, some instance of self-defense. I’m no cannibal.”

“Gotcha,” she said, puzzled by his words, but getting that he was offended. “My point is—I kill people who need killing, and it doesn’t seem to bother me. I could say my parents made me that way, but that sounds like I think I need an excuse. I don’t.”

“Dead insides,” the Rev said, by way of diagnosis.

“Exactly.” She seemed relieved to find someone who understood. “I have to wonder how you can be a reverend, and yet you do these things?”

“Hide the bodies of killers? Dispense justice to those who threaten the peace of this place?”

In a nutshell, Olivia thought. She nodded.

“Because that’s why I’m here,” he said. “I can’t say no different than that. The God of Moses and Abraham put me here to preserve and protect Midnight. That’s my job. And I’ll do it to the best of my ability.” He gave her a sharp nod in return, to tell her the subject was closed.

“I’m trying to help Manfred solve his problem,” she said. “But so far, we haven’t gotten anywhere. Do you have any advice?”

“Use every resource available,” he told her. “You haven’t done that yet. That’s quieter. But if that don’t work, go in strong and hard.” And the way he leaned back after he spoke, Olivia knew that was all he was going to say. She thought of a dozen other questions, but she’d reached his limit.

“All right, then,” she said. “I’m doing the best I can.”